Page 34 of Surviving You, Scotch and Sammy 1

I push my chin forward until she takes a hint, then as she places her palm over my lips, I kiss her hand gently. “I’ll be your carriage every night, Sammy.”

She snickers, and though I know for a fact she hasn’t consumed a single drop of alcohol tonight, she still giggles as though she’s high on life. “Sam and Sammy. It’s been ages, and I forgot to think up a nickname for you.”

“Any suggestions yet?”

She breathes out a lazy sigh, but she’s anything but lazy. Her long muscular thighs squeeze me firmly, even as her hands knead my chest absentmindedly. “Puddin’ sounds cool…?”

I snort loudly, so loud that the others turn and look our way. Marc smiles at me, until Meg hoots and rushes Sammy and me, then he turns away with a dirty frown and he starts kicking rocks with his hands dug deep in his jeans pockets. Holding the bottle up to my lips, Meg forces me to drink or let it spill down my shirt. “You said you’d drink with me tonight, Turner. So we drink.” She pulls the bottle away even as my eyes water from the equivalent of six shots she just force fed me. Sammy snickers on my back as I cough and wheeze, but Meg takes another swig without a single cough. I have to man up or she’ll embarrass me.

“So I’m told you’ve loved Sammy since the ninth grade, Turner.” She turns her nose up. “What’s up with that?”

Sammy snickers near my ear again and she holds me tighter. I run my hands higher up her thighs, and with every inch I steal, her body becomes stiffer and her chest stops and starts haltingly. Interesting. I pretend to ignore her reactions, and I turn my eyes back to answer Meg. “I’ve loved Sammy since she walked into first period science when we were fourteen.”

“What would you have done if she never gave into you?”

She feeds me another long drink of scotch before I can answer, then pressing the bottle up to Sammy’s lips, she tips it up, though she doesn’t make Sammy drink even half as much as she gave me.

“I’d have done the same thing I’ve been doing,” I tell her as I fight back against my burning throat. I squeeze Sammy’s thighs again. “It’s been three years already. I’d wait a hundred if I had to.”

Sammy and Meg both sigh indulgently, and Sassy St James lets out a disappointed sigh, making me realize Luc and the girls are walking behind us too. “But why?” Meg asks. “I’m not saying my girl isn’t amazing, ‘cause she is, but rumor has it, you literally didn’t even know her. So you didn’t like her for her personality yet. And she wasn’t exactly strutting around in a string bikini. She’d yet to utter a single word… So why?”

I consider my words carefully, even as the alcohol starts whooshing through my blood, the exertion of walking and carrying Sammy pushing my blood through my body faster.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been asked this question, nor is it the first time I’ve sat in silence and tried to puzzle us out. I’ve written songs in an attempt to put what I feel into words. I’ve run for thousands of hours in silence as I tried to think it through. I’ve never exercised without music before… not until I met Sammy – because then she became my music, and I needed the silence so I could think.

I shrug my shoulders, even as Sammy’s head rises with the movement. “I just dunno Meg, and I’m not sure it can be explained in words. I’m not even sure it’s rational, and unless you felt what I feel, you couldn’t possibly know. But I guess it’s as cheesy as when two souls that started as one, were finally reunited. Fourteen or forty, it is what it is.”

“And there’s no doubt in your mind?” She takes another swig, then presses her bottle to my lips. The liquid rolls down my throat smoother this time, and my smile turns up into a goofy smirk at my accomplishment. Meg watches me with her own smirk, then her guy-friend snags her hand in his and his lips swoop down to attack her neck.

“Barf.”

I turn at Luc’s words, then I laugh as he walks with a can of beer in his hand, and each arm slung over a girl’s shoulders. Sassy tucks her body into his – I guess she doesn’t mind the age gap like Meg does – and another girl from school presses herself up against his other side. Barf.

“Who’s your friend, Meg?”

Meg unlatches herself from the guy, though his arms reach out like he has the eight arms of an octopus. She slaps his hand from her boobs again, though she softens the blow with a flirty smile. She walks backwards with the bottle in one hand. “You’re still cute, you know that, Luc?”

“Thanks, babe.” He tips his chin at Biff again. “I know you’re new around here, but we don’t actually know that guy. We don’t often take in strays.”

Biff’s face turns from staring at Meg with hungry eyes, to shooting a dangerous glare at Luc. He snags Meg’s hand again, then swinging her up into the cradle of his arms, he continues to glare at Luc. “Name’s Drew, and you, fuckface, are still a child, so maybe you wanna shut your pie hole.”

Marc’s face contorts with quick rage, but shooing his girls off, Luc sprints forward and jumps on Marc’s back like Sammy is on mine. Luc squeezes him mockingly and slaps a wet kiss on his cheek until Marc’s angry face is replaced with disgust at Luc. “I love you like Turner loves Sammy, you know that Macchio? You’re pretty fly for a white guy.”

Marcus laughs and throws Luc off his back, and though Luc falls to his ass, his ego remains intact when the girls rush back and plaster themselves to his sides.

“Who invited these people?” I ask Sammy, and mirroring Luc, she drops a wet kiss to my cheek. Can’t say it disgusts me, though.

“Want me to get down yet?”

My hands squeeze her firm thighs closer, and I lay my head back lazily. I maneuver us so her face sits against my neck. “Not even a little bit, Ricci.”

“You didn’t finish your story!” Meg calls out. “I need to know exactly what she did, so I can do the same and snag me a boy who’ll write songs for me and look at me like I was made of gold.”

“Maybe you should stop whoring around then,” Marc replies snidely.

Meg swings herself out of Biff’s arms angrily, and though he tries again with the octopus arms, she rushes toward Marc as she sways a little too far to the left for her to be completely sober. With her bottle still clutched in one arm, and her other hand up with her pointer finger out, she stabs him in the chest. “Nobody ever said I’m a whore, Marc. You don’t even know me.”

“You hit on--”

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